Dear Mom,
The thing about combat that is beginning to impress me most is the appreciation
I now have for the finer things of life. The love one has for their friends,
the love and need for a woman and the things one wants to do for that
dream girl when this thing is all over. A woman somewhere seems to be
the the driving force behind all men in combat.
You're so scared that even at 400 miles an hour doesn't seem fast enough. The bomb run is only four or five minutes long, but it seems like hours. The bomb bay doors are only open for one or two minutes, but that seems like an eternity
because that's when we're most vulnerable. Each burst of flak jeers at you and says "I'll get you yet" and any second you expect a burst to do just that. All of a sudden the flak quits and as you start to breathe a sigh of relief, someone says " fighters at 10 o'clock, coming in. You begin to relax now because here's something to do, something you can shoot back at. They're coming in all over, 9,3, 10, 12 and 2 o'clock, the tail gunner is even calling out some from the rear. Some of these Japs are really sharp today! During all this the bombs have gone away, the doors are closed and we're high tailing it for home and a nice juicy steak, maybe. You aren't even thinking of that though because that damned upper turret is playing a raucous death song for the devil that just went between us and our wing man. Here comes another one in at 12 o'clock level, the Jap puts his Tony up on it's side and he keeps getting bigger and bigger, his four guns are winking at us, you think he is going to ram us? (Bill's note.. Z square 8 went down after being rammed a few days after this was written). Somehow, he doesn't and we continue to beat our way out of what seems like an abyss. Maybe, It's more like a wild horrible nightmare from which it is impossible to awaken, but nevertheless, we do make it once more. We are smiling, shaking hands with each other and recounting the events of the past few minutes as though they were just part of a dream.
As we approached the target in the center of Tokyo the searchlights suddenly come on and light up the whole sky. For a while they weaved around like the tentacles of an octopus, but suddenly one of them flashed by then came around again and on the third try hit us squarely and stayed on us. The rest attracted like flies to a piece of candy swung on us and they all followed us through the bomb run. It was impossible to see out in any direction except up. And there the stars were shining their encouragement and I offered a prayer to God at that very moment. It must have been answered because flak was exploding so close that it was rocking the ship and we could hear it, but only one hole was in the ship. The Bombardier says "Bombs away" and we begin as violent evasive action as possible. During this, one fighter has made his pass and missed. Soon the flak ceases and the lights go off in ones and twos and again we are alone with only God and the stars for company. I looked out the same upper window and offered a prayer of thanks for our deliverance from that which would have liked to have crushed us.
